GREATEST HIT (...AND 21 OTHER PRETTY COOL SONGS)

Released in 2008, 'Greatest Hit' (a reference to the bands one radio hit, 'Pull Me Under') is a compilation album by progressive metal giants Dream Theater. With an abundance of incredible material to choose from, it should have been easy enough to make this a three-disc box set that would be the defining progressive music collection. Instead, this is more of a two-disc cash-grab, a quick and easy effort to introduce new fans to the band.

Admittedly, for that purpose, it works. However, for the die-hard fans, this is more of a disappointment.

Firstly, it'd be near-impossible to truly do this kind of band justice with a compilation. Since most of their most popular songs are around ten, fifteen or even twenty minutes in duration, you'd require at least five discs just to fit them all in. And since we already have these songs anyway, why bother?

So instead, the band went the route of using radio edits. A risky move, for sure. It's cool as a fan to own different versions of the songs we already know and love... but that doesn't necessarily mean I'd want to hear it repeatedly. I'd rather stick with the originals. No cuts. No censored profanities. No nonsense.

But that's not all, there's three 2007 remixes of Dream Theater classics from the 1992 'Images and Words' album, and while the compositions themselves are perfect, the remixes are pretty ugly and messy. The mix seems a bit unbalanced and some random noises and sound effects kind of ruins things. Once again, I'll stick with the originals.

However, for the Dream Theater newbie, this is a great starting point. With all the hits, including 'Pull Me Under', 'Take the Time', 'Home', 'As I Am', 'Another Day', 'The Spirit Carries On', 'Sacrificed Sons' and 'Hollow Years', this is still a great retrospective of the bands career. But for long-time fans such as myself, this really serves as nothing more than another CD to add to the collection.